Comstockery is the world's standing joke at the expense of the United States.

1916, H. L. Mencken, column, Baltimore Evening Sun, July, 19, 1916,

A people unconvinced of the pervasiveness of sin, the supreme importance of moral problems, the need of harsh and inquisitorial laws--in brief, of the whole Puritan theological and political apparatus--would never have permitted the growth of such curious flowers as Comstockery, so obnoxious and so incomprehensible to all foreigners.

^Craig L. LaMay writes, "The term 'Comstockery,' supposedly invented by George Bernard Shaw in 1905 when Comstock removed his play 'Man and Superman' from the public shelves at the New York Public Library, in fact first appeared as the title for a Times editorial in December 1895." Craig L. LaMay, "America's censor: Anthony Comstock and free speech," Communications and the Law 19:3 (September 1997).